DISTORTED, SELF-SERVING SECULARISM & MINORITYISM
Secularism is dissociation of religion from the state. It is the principle of the separation of government institutions and functionaries mandated to represent the state from religious institutions, religious authorities, and religious functionaries.
With dominance of Christianity in the West the results were disastrous: the Dark Ages, and violent punishments, repressions, tortures, and Inquisitions that continued during the subsequent period. Christianity claimed to be the “only truth” and the “only true religion”, and was even opposed to science if it digressed from the Christian beliefs—notable, illustrative examples of victims (or those who, afraid of the Church, tended to hide or delay publication of their findings) being the greats like Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Charles Darwin.
It was gradually realised that the necessary drivers of a civilised, harmonious, progressive and prosperous state were multi-religious societies, multiculturism, free thinking and propagation of knowledge, and unhindered scientific pursuits—but, all these became victims of the Christian totalitarianism and exclusivism. This led to the advocation of the concept of “Secularism”.
However, Indian-Hindu civilisation had built-in secularism, and it did not just readily accept, it freely promoted, multi-ethnicity, multi-religions, and multiculturism; and its Dharmic traditions actively promoted and encouraged pursuit of knowledge and science—quite unlike and in sharp contrast to the latter-two Abrahamic faiths. No wonder, Indian mathematics, astronomy, medicine, etc. were centuries ahead of the West. Yet, copycat and anglophile Nehru, who neither had a deep understanding of the Western civilisational evolution, nor of India, grabbed on “secularism”, without realising it was irrelevant for India, as it was built into the Indian-Hindu ethos.
On the occasion of the opening of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute in Calcutta in 1961, together with the inauguration there of a conference on spiritual life, Nehru burst out in his speech:
“I have always avoided using the word spirituality because of the existence of much bogus spirituality. India is a hungry nation. To talk of spirituality to hungry men does not mean anything… It is no good running away from the daily problems of life in the name of spirituality. I am out of place in this gathering—I am supposed to open this building and inaugurate the conference. I do so.”
What arrogance and ignorance! Was the institute or the conference advocating spirituality to cover up for hunger? Can’t endeavouring for a better material life (including, of course, removal of hunger) and search for an enlightened spiritual life go together? If not, in Nehru and Nehru- Dynasty India of poverty-perpetuating socialism, where there would always have been poverty and hunger, there could never have been any place for spirituality!
Author of “Discovery of India” failed to discover that despite different physical features, languages, food habits, costumes, and so on, if there was something that bound India together for centuries from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, and from Dwarka to Dibrugarh, it was Hinduism, and its associated religions like Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism that arose from its soil; and that Hinduism and Indian cultural and civilisational traditions had built-in secularism and multiculturism as they always accepted other religions and minorities.
Wrote David Frawley in his foreword to Sandeep Balkrishna’s book ‘70 Years of Secularism: Unpopular Essays on the Unofficial Political Religion of India’ :
“India’s secularism [founded by Nehru] in fact has been colonialism, not in disguise but in a bold new aggressive and intolerant form, propelled not by foreign rule but by the rule of foreign mindsets by Indians themselves… That something is ‘against secularism’ became a way to condemn anything Hindu as effectively as missionaries and mullahs had used such terms as polytheist, idolater, heathen or kafir. Secularism gained a new sanctity to override any spiritual basis to India’s culture. Anti-secular forces were in turn, deemed ‘fascist’, revealing the leftist rhetoric behind the charge. There was an effort to make anything Hindu as fascist, just as the Chinese communists regarded Tibetan Buddhism as fascist… The book documents the cultural genocide that the Nehruvian- Marxist alliance wrought on India over the last seventy years, and its great civilization of many thousands of years, under the name of secularism and socialism. While India did not politically become communist, it was a communist sympathizing culture and was under communist intellectual rule, even long after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. This shadow has yet to be entirely lifted. Lifting it is the intellectual necessity for India to progress whether materially or culturally…”
Jinnah’s call for observance of ‘Direct Action Day’ on 16 August 1946 had led to the Calcutta Carnage, or the Great Calcutta Killings. It was the worst communal carnage committed by the Muslim League that left 5,000 to 10,000 dead, 15,000 injured, and about one lakh homeless! HS Suhrawardy, who was heading the Muslim League–dominated government in Bengal (and who then came to be known as the “butcher of Calcutta”), rather than controlling the situation, further instigated the Muslim goondas. Nehru, as the Vice President of the Executive Council (that became the Interim Government on 2 September 1946, with Nehru as the PM) did little to bring relief to the victims on the specious plea of provincial autonomy— that law and order was a state subject, hence the domain of the Bengal Provincial Government. However, when there was a reaction later to the Calcutta killings in Bihar, Nehru himself rushed to Bihar ignoring the fact of provincial autonomy, even threatening the Bihari Hindus with bombings (!): if Muslims kill Hindus, then ignore, or make excuses, or hide behind technical grounds; but if Hindus counter-react to Muslim killings, immediately get into action against the Hindus!
Among many other matters where Patel and Nehru had divergent positions was the issue of Ajmer riots soon after independence. In the Ajmer communal riots, notwithstanding the undisputed mischief of the Muslims, while Sardar Patel rightly backed the Chief Secretary Shankar Prasad, Nehru intervened through his private secretary HVR Iyengar to mollycoddle violent Muslims, and instructed that as many Hindus (though they were not the guilty party) as Muslims be arrested—to maintain balance!
Nehru allowed inundation of West Bengal and Assam by Muslims from East Pakistan (Bangladesh) drastically changing its demographics. It didn’t dawn upon him that it was the changed demographics that led to the creation of Pakistan; and allowing demographics to freely change in independent India may again lead to divisions. Nehru turned a blind eye to illegal and rampant proselytization by the Christian missionaries the net effect of which was the secessionist movements in the North-east. A genuine secularist and a wise, visionary leader would have known that ensuring Hindus (that includes Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, etc.) continued to be an overwhelming majority in India was the guaranteed way of ensuring permanence of genuine secularism, and a bulwark against communalism— the latter two Abrahamic religions, with their claims of being the “only true religion”, being exclusivist, proselytizing, and anti-secular: witness the many no-go zones in India where Muslims are in majority; or disallowing Hindus to vote in certain areas in Bengal where Muslims are in majority; or the driving away of the Kashmiri Pandits from the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley; or the unpardonable abusive language that the Muslim and Christian missionaries use against Hindu gods and traditions.
Wrote the veteran Congress leader DP Mishra: “…And so far as Nehru was concerned, he had apparently expected secularism to be practised only by the Hindus…” However, when it came to grabbing power, and getting votes, for Nehru, his “secularism” was no constraint. The Congress so manoeuvred that in the 1957-elections the Bishop of Kottayam issued an appeal to the Kerala Christians to vote for the Congress. The Congress entered into an alliance with the Muslim League in Kerala to grab power. Nehru forgot all about the Uniform Civil Code laid down in the Directive Principles of the State Policy, which could have vastly benefited Muslims women, once he realised that thanks to Mullahs, and conservative but influential Muslim groups, it could cost his party Muslim votes.
Nehru’s secularism was leveraging religious minorities for vote-bank politics. Unlike the minorities, Hindus did not vote as a block, and therefore, doing injustice to the majority religion (Hinduism) didn’t affect votes. However, favouring religious minorities did yield vote dividend, as they voted on religious lines. Nehru was quick to grasp the convenient road to votes and power, and in the garb of secularism, acted in a way as to procure the votes of the religious minorities. Like in the economic field where Nehru laid the foundations of misery through his debilitating socialism; in the political and electoral field, he laid the foundations of harmful, competitive, religious minoritysm.
Nehru, as head of the Interim Government, had moved an Object Resolution, resulting in Articles 29 and 30 of the Constitution, on 13 December 1946, with a view to appease the Muslim League so that it does not press for Partition. However, Partition and Pakistan became a reality on 15 August 1947—yet, the Articles 29 and 30 of the Constitution, meant to avert Partition, continued to be debated after the creation of Pakistan, and were finally included in the Constitution: a clear and irresponsible case of Minority appeasement by Nehru.
